This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Police under fire for failing to notify SIU of Black man's injuries

For the second time in just over a month, the Toronto Police Service is under fire for failing to report a case of a seriously injured young Black man to Ontario’s police watchdog.

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) announced Wednesday that it was charging Const. Joseph Dropuljic with assault in the case of a man in North York in November 2015. The man was 23 at the time. None of the allegations against Dropuljic has been proven in court. His first court appearance is Sept. 7.

A man, now 25, who accuses police of beating him in 2015 says he lost consciousness at one point, and was left with a concussion and mental trauma. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star)

The SIU also revealed it was only notified of the case nearly a year after the alleged assault — and not by police, despite the law being clear that police forces have a duty to report cases of serious injury to the SIU. (See correction appended at end of article)

The young man is now 25 and asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. He told reporters at a news conference on Thursday that he was getting into a taxi to visit a friend on a Saturday night when Toronto police officers dragged him out of the cab, kneed him in the back, beat him, illegally searched and groped him, and dragged him toward a police cruiser.

He said he lost consciousness at one point, and was left with a concussion and mental trauma.

Article Continued Below

The officers told him they were responding to a report of gunfire in the area, he said, but refused to take him up on his offer to follow him into his apartment building so he could retrieve his ID. He said they insisted on searching him for a firearm — he said Thursday he did not have one on him — without reading him his constitutional rights.

“It’s something I would say constantly plays over again in my mind,” he said, pausing at times. “It’s haunting . . . I just try to keep it all together, keep strong.”

Only when his mother came out, and eventually retrieved his ID, did the officers leave him alone, the man said. Although he was handcuffed, he was not charged with an offence. His mother called an ambulance and he was taken to the hospital.

In the months after the incident, the man said reports of Black men being beaten and killed by police made him want to be “proactive,” and he went to the African Canadian Legal Clinic to tell his story. They in turn reported it to another police oversight agency, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director.

The executive director of the legal clinic said Thursday that the OIPRD decided to notify the SIU, which has the power to lay criminal charges and investigates cases of police-involved death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault. The OIPRD later said it does not notify the SIU regarding any complaints and did not in this case.

“When discussing the brutality that African Canadians experience at the hands of the Toronto Police Service, we are no longer alarmed, but angry,” clinic executive director Margaret Parsons said Thursday.

“The Black community is fed up with racial profiling, we’re fed up with police brutality, we’re fed up with police shootings, and we’re fed up with police violence.”

Article Continued Below

Dropuljic did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. The union president, Mike McCormack, said he had no comment.

The assault allegation follows charges of aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and public mischief laid by the SIU last month against Toronto police Const. Michael Theriault and his brother, Christian Theriault, in the beating of 19-year-old Dafonte Miller in Whitby in December 2016. Theriault was off-duty at the time.

Durham regional police had responded to the scene and ended up charging only Miller, but those charges were later withdrawn by the Crown. Like the Dropuljic case, the SIU was not notified immediately of Miller’s injuries, but only six months later when contacted by Miller’s lawyer.

That case sparked a back-and-forth between Toronto police and Durham police about the responsibility for SIU notification, and also raised questions about the duty to notify when the officer involved is off-duty.

It has led to ongoing internal reviews being conducted by both forces. The Toronto police review is being conducted by Waterloo regional police at the request of Chief Mark Saunders, while Durham’s police chief has not made clear if his force’s review will be made public.

Unlike the Miller case, the officers involved in the North York incident were on duty, and no other police force was involved. Saunders had little to say about it Thursday after a police services board meeting, where many members of the public attended with signs in support of Miller.

“You're talking about allegations right now and here you go with the court of public opinion again,” Saunders told reporters. “This officer is given his opportunity to be heard in the courtroom, with evidence, and in order for the integrity of that case to go before the courts properly, I have to be cautious about what I say at this point in time.”

He went on to say that “there are moments when things may come across as needing to be explored better,” and said this case is an example where a police oversight body “has obviously exercised their rights and authorities.”

“This young man was not known to the police, and had no criminal antecedents,” said clinic staff lawyer, Lavinia Latham.

The man “100 per cent believes” that he was racially profiled and told reporters he has been carded several times in the past — referring to the police practice of stopping individuals and asking them for their information without charging them with a crime, and which data show disproportionately affects Black men.

He said he was never told the reason for the officers’ attempt at arresting him that night in 2015, and that he was called a “f------ idiot” and told to “shut the f--- up” when he asked, according to a summary of the allegations provided by the clinic.

When his mother arrived with his passport, he said, Dropuljic searched his name in a police database, and when nothing came up, the man said he was told “Get the f--- out of my car,” according to the summary.

After the ambulance arrived, the man said he noticed the police officers going into the security office of his apartment building where the video surveillance is kept.

“It’s a feeling you can’t explain, I would say helplessness,” the man told reporters of his encounter with police. “I couldn’t do anything to stop what was transpiring. . . . Since that day, I can’t explain the emotions. A lot of sadness, a lot of pain.”

Correction: Aug. 31, 2017: This article states that police did not inform the SIU of this incident. In fact, Toronto police notified the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) of this case only 11 months after the incident, after it was informed of the incident by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director.

The OIPRD had been contacted by the African Canadian Legal Clinic, which the alleged assault victim had approached some months after the incident. The ACLC said publicly that the OIPRD referred the case to the SIU, but the OIPRD later clarified that it does not have the power to directly refer a case to the SIU.

More from The Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com